Press

Press for The Book of Beautiful Questions

Reviews

“This practical work is designed to prompt action and get results” || Library Journal“Berger delves further into ‘beautiful questions,’ which are powerful tools that can transform people’s thinking … After laying the framework of the right questions to ask, he rounds out the book with a discussion of how to create an inquiring life; the process of questioning instead of reacting; and probing to find solutions to problems. VERDICT: This practical work is designed to prompt action and get results.”

“Guides professionals to think deeply about how they can use questions” || Publishers Weekly“Guides professionals to think deeply about how they can use questions to improve decision making and to inspire creativity, connect with others, and cultivate leadership skills . . . Introspective readers, or readers who feel like they can’t get off the hamster wheel, will find this helpful.”

“Berger makes a good case for building questioning into work culture and workflow.” || Kirkus Reviews

“The Book of Beautiful Questions is a veritable gold mine. In its pages, you will find fresh (and often brilliant) ways to use the power of the interrogative to sharpen your decision-making, boost your creativity, and deepen your connections to others. Berger’s insights are so potent and his advice so practical that only one question remains: What’s stopping you from picking up this extraordinary book?” || Daniel H. Pink, New York Times bestselling author of When, Drive, and A Whole New Mind

“Why don’t we ask enough questions? Why do we ask so many bad questions? And how can we ask the kinds of great questions that make us better at leading, deciding, connecting and creating? The Book of Beautiful Questions isn’t just a thought-provoking book on questions—it’s also full of instantly useful answers.” || Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take

“In the Book of Beautiful Questions Warren Berger shows us the incredible power that inquiry has to approach problems differently and to unearth powerful, innovative solutions. In an increasingly complicated world, knowing how to ask provocative questions is a must-have skill for success.” || Lisa Bodell, bestselling author of Why Simple Wins, and CEO of FutureThink

“Warren Berger raises questioning to an art form. The Book of Beautiful Questions is a vital read for anyone who wants to excel at creativity, leadership, decision-making and interpersonal skills. Berger offers a symphony of questions that will inspire you to become your own maestro of inquiry.” || Frank Sesno, former CNN anchor and author of Ask More

“Use Warren Berger and his new book as a guide for asking not only more beautiful questions but also more important ones. It may well make the difference between a busy life and a life that really matters.” || Greg McKeown, New York Times bestselling author of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“Being an effective leader is not so much about having all the answers as asking the right questions. In The Book of Beautiful Questions, Warren Berger shows why questioning is critical to success—and provides hundreds of questions that can help you be a better thinker, partner, problem-solver, and leader.” || Marshall Goldsmith, New York Times bestselling author of Triggers and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

“The Book of Beautiful Questions gives us the power to re-imagine our lives. For those who seek to make better decisions and lead more effectively, it’s a transformational resource you’ll go back to again and again.” || Dorie Clark, author of Entrepreneurial You and Stand Out

Articles & Interviews

9 Books to Add to Your Reading List || TheGlitterGuide.com
“I’ve been journaling almost all of my life, but more recently, I started to be more mindful. The questions are wonderful to ask yourself, as well as loved ones. You can also use this book as I did for mindful journaling. If you ever feel stuck, open it up and choose one of the many important questions to guide you in your daily journaling.”

9 Reasons to Ask More Questions || Medium.com
Writer Diane Stopyra interviews Medium Member Warren Berger and discusses how reclaiming your inquisitive nature can make life better in a few critical ways

Podcasts & Radio

Podcast: 733 Warren Berger “Questionologist” – A More Beautiful Question || The Hidden Why
A great chat with Leigh Martinuzzi about the power of questions to bring about significant change, spark new ideas, solve problems, encourage growth and ultimately allow us to find greater joy. Includes a good list of reading resources on the podcast page.

Podcast: “Warren Berger – How To Ask More Beautiful Questions” || The Learning Leader
Conversation between Ryan Hawk and Warren covering a wide range of topics of interest to leaders, including “Have the confidence to be humble. Be willing to admit you don’t have all the answers. The leader doesn’t need to have all the answers.”

Podcast: “The Powerful Questions That Will Help You Decide, Create, Connect, and Lead” || ArtofManliness.com
In this interview with Brett McKay, Warren talks through the importance of asking questions when you’re trying to make decisions, be creative, form relationships, and lead people, while providing concrete examples of questions to ask yourself and others to be more effective in each domain.

Podcast: Warren Berger || What Matters Most with Paul Samuel Dolman
“I learned a ton. These questioning principles are universal and will both in business and within interpersonal relationships. Listen deeply and apply into your life.

Podcast: The Power of Asking Better Questions || Educated GuessJustin McElderry’s Educated Guess is geared to young businesspeople and we talked about the role of questioning in figuring out big questions about career and pursuing passions.

Podcast: The Power of Beautiful Questions with Warren Berger ||
Inside Launch Street with Tamara Ghandour
“Warren shares more about how you know if you’re asking the wrong questions or the beautiful questions, and why questions need to be grounded in honesty and curiosity.”

Podcast: Perfect the Art of Asking Beautiful Questions || Manager Mojo with Steve Caldwell
“It is impossible to know everything in today’s complex world, but it’s not impossible to find answers to everything when you learn to ask great questions. Successful leaders and business executives need to keep learning. Ask. Learn. Collect data and decide….”

Podcast: Beautiful Questions with Warren Berger – #141 || The Remarkable Leadership Podcast
Kevin Eikenberry sits down with Warren to discuss how leaders should be encouraged to value the question and how everyone should take ownership of their questions.

Radio Interview with Warren Berger || The Kathryn Zox Show • VoiceAmericaKathryn Zox discusses with Warren about how in a time when critical thinking is in crisis and we’re swamped with unreliable information thoughtful questioning can help us make better judgments and decisions.

Press for A More Beautiful Question

A More Beautiful Question is featured on the following “Best Books” and “Recommended” lists

Warren Berger: Improve Your Life by Improving Your Questions || FarnamStreet.comInterview by Shane Parrish of FarnamStreet.com: “In this episode, we discuss the importance of asking the right questions, why they’re critical to your success, and how you might be one great question away from a major breakthrough.”

Chasing Beautiful Questions || Spirit Magazine (April 2014 cover story)“What if you found that creative genius does not lie in knowing all the answers? Van Phillips asked three questions that changed the world. You can ask them too.”

5 Common Questions a Leader Should Never Ask || HBR Blog Network
“Questions can be great for engaging and motivating people , but they can just as easily be used to confront or blame, and can shift the mood from positive to negative.”

How to Capture Attention and Establish Trajectory || Dan Rockwell at LeadershipFreak.com“I don’t need another book about questions. I’m the most curious question-asker I know. Leaders hire me to ask questions. I’m an expert. But, Warren’s email wouldn’t go away… Warren and I finally connected. I hate to admit it, but, he’s as passionate about questions as I am. Worse yet, he’s thought about questions in ways that hadn’t occurred to me.”

Forget the Mission Statement. Ask the Mission Question || The Management Blog by BloombergBusinessweek“Thinking of a company mission as a shared endeavor—an ongoing attempt to answer a bold question through collaborative inquiry—seems vastly preferable to having to live up to a dictum handed down from on high.”

Powerful Questions to Inspire Positive Change || PsychCentral.com
“To discover good answers, we have to ask good questions. We can ask the above questions regularly to help us create a fulfilling life, whatever ‘fulfilling’ means to you.”

Igniting Change with Beautiful Questions || Womenetics.com
“Creating a workplace that values and encourages great questions, says Berger, ‘requires a special kind of leader, one who is both humble and confident – which is a rare mix.’”

Q&A by Larry Ferlazzo || Education Week“Here’s what I would say to any student: Knowing the answers will help you in school, but knowing how to question will help you in life. That ability to question—and do it well—enables you to tackle challenges and solve problems, which will help you succeed in your career and as a person.”

Why Ask Questions? || Govloop.com
“Questioning is an essential skill that many of us forget to practice. Listen to the on-demand version of Berger’s keynote at GovLoop’s State and Local Innovators Virtual Summit, Why Ask Questions?, by clicking here.”

Better Questions in the Classroom || Q&A with USC Rossier School of Education
“As we grow older and are expected to know things, we start questioning our questions before we even have a chance to ask them. How can teachers encourage better questions from students in the classroom?”

Tackle Any Problem with These Three Questions || Fast Company {The third in a 3-part Fast Company series; see other links below}
“Whatever challenge you’ve staked out—an entrepreneurial venture, a potential innovation, perhaps a social problem crying out for a fresh approach—asking the right questions, at the right time, can help you begin to tackle that problem and can even guide you toward a solution.”

Become a Company that Questions Everything || HarvardBusinessReview.org“How can a company create an environment where people are more inclined to question? And is it possible to encourage the “right kind” of questions — the ones most likely to lead to productive results? Based on studying a number of companies that have done seem to be doing a good job at creating a culture of inquiry, here are four key observations…”

Phrase your mission statement like a question to motivate people: Warren Berger || The Economic Times“‘Asking questions is seen as ineffective and slowing things down. The perception is that questions get in the way of doing something. But if done right, it can be a productive and not a negative force,’ says Berger. There is an art and science to asking great questions, which can spark innovation.”

Thinker in Residence: Warren Berger || 800CEORead.com“From start to finish, A More Beautiful Question is challenging and provocative because it attempts (and succeeds) at doing the very thing it advocates for: it asks questions. Lots and lots of questions. ”

The Power of Asking the Right Questions || Amex OPENForum Q&A with Matthew E. May“Through a number of well-researched stories, Berger demonstrates that the most creative, successful people in the world tend to be expert questioners. They’ve mastered the art of inquiry, raising questions no one else is asking—and finding the answers everyone else is seeking.”

How to Promote Questioning Skills in Your Workplace || Interview by Skilledup.com/Robert McGuire“If the skills gap extends to the ability to pose good questions, then how can businesses close that gap? What can organizational leaders do to promote questioning skills in their workplace and how can they recruit based on this skill? Interview with Warren Berger.”

How to change your life with the right questions || Profile by The Journal News
“It’s not easy asking questions of a man who has mastered the art of inquiry. But Warren Berger, author of “A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas,” is more than happy to field questions on a topic that has grown close to his heart: how the right sorts of questions have the power to change lives.”

The Worst Mistake America’s CEOs Make ||The Fiscal Times“Too many business leaders stink at asking important questions – and as a result, their companies don’t seize market opportunities, push out new products, handle P.R. nightmares effectively or any number of other essential business actions. This absence of critical questioning risks compromising their bottom line, their brand or both.”

Warren Berger Tells How to Ask a ‘Beautiful Question’ || Interview on Daily Beast“A fair amount of the book is focused on the need to ask deeper, better questions in business—which really resonated with me…. But Berger also writes about how questioning can help us solve problems and work through difficult challenges in our daily lives. In today’s fast-paced world, a lot of us are rushing around and doing things without taking the time to ask the critical Why and What If questions that can guide us in better directions.”

How to Cultivate the Art of Asking Good Questions || The Wall Street Journal Speakeasy blog“Everyone knows about the mobile messaging app that sold for $19 billion. But have you heard about another amazing app—the one that helps you figure out what to do whenever you’re faced with a problem or a challenge?”

Warren Berger – A More Beautiful Question || Sam McNerney at 250 Words“Berger discusses how our innate urge to ask questions atrophies over time, “vuja de,” and some of the books that inspired him to write A More Beautiful Question.”

Reviews for A MORE BEAUTIFUL QUESTION

“One closes Berger’s book newly conscious of the significance of smart questions” || The New York Times“Is there a relationship between innovation and the ability to ask ambitious questions? The journalist and innovation expert Berger argues there is, and in this breezy management book he seeks to improve our capacity to question…. One closes Berger’s book newly conscious of the significance of smart questions.”

Hard Questions Spark Breakthrough Business Thinking || Martin Zwilling, Forbes
“I recommend Berger’s book as a practical system of inquiry that can guide you through the process of innovative questioning, helping you find imaginative, powerful answers and building the culture of continuous innovation.”

“The significance of the questioning mind” || Kirkus Reviews “Berger makes great use of both historical and contemporary examples of educators, innovators and business moguls who, by taking time to ask pointed questions of themselves and their respective industries, have both broadened their understandings of challenging situations and expanded the range of positive possibilities.”

Innovation Begins with 3 Questions || Strategy + Business
“The book is an engaging read and well supported by the research and experiences of a veritable who’s who of academic and corporate experts. But as essential as asking the right questions is to the innovation process, it is certainly not all there is to successful innovation. Questions need to lead to answers, and answers to action.”

Asking a More Beautiful Question || Leading Blog from LeadershipNow.com“Berger shows how the most powerful force for igniting change is the question. Example after example demonstrate how often off-beat “why” questions were at the foundation of many innovations.”

13 Must Read Business Books in 2014 || Adam M. Grant on The Atlantic’s Quartz.com, and LinkedIn“Berger poses many fascinating questions, including this one: What if companies had mission questions rather than mission statements? This is a book everyone ought to read—without question.”

Recommended Summer Reading For Creative Leaders From The First Half Of 2014 || David Slocum on Forbes.com
“Journalist Berger (who wrote the excellent Glimmeron design thinking) describes the importance of generating a culture of inquiry and learning. The result is potentially paradigm-shifting: rather than assuming great leaders, creatives, innovators, and entrepreneurs possess the distinctive ability to provide clear answers, the book proposes that asking the right questions might be a more fundamental skill.”

Thought leaders on
A MORE BEAUTIFUL QUESTION
and Warren Berger

“We know that the art of asking questions is at the heart of discovery in science, philosophy, medicine—so why don’t we extend that power to all areas of our lives? The questions Warren Berger raises in this book are thoughtful, provocative, odd, serious, and silly, but in every case they are indeed the kind of ‘beautiful questions’ that can help us identify the right problems and generate creative solutions.”—DANIEL PINK, New York Times bestselling author of Drive and To Sell is Human

“Most people believe that great leaders, innovators, entrepreneurs, and activists are distinguished by their ability to give compelling answers. This profound book shatters that assumption, showing that the more vital skill is asking the right questions…. Berger poses many fascinating questions, including this one: What if companies had mission questions rather than mission statements? This is a book everyone ought to read—without question.”—ADAM GRANT, New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take, in “13 Must-Read Business Books in 2014”

“In the old economy, it was all about having the answers. But in today’s dynamic, lean economy, it’s more about asking the right questions. A More Beautiful Question is about figuring out how to ask, and answer, the questions that can lead to new opportunities and growth.”—ERIC RIES, New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup

“Innovation specialist Berger takes on some big questions in this absorbing treatise that calls for more curiosity in our corporate development and daily lives…. Quirky sidebars on topics ranging from George Carlin to hard-boiled eggs add to the book’s inquisitive spirit…. This potential game-changer will help readers identify where opportunities lie and how to seize them.”—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (read full review)

“Berger makes great use of both historical and contemporary examples of educators, innovators and business moguls who, by taking time to ask pointed questions of themselves and their respective industries, have both broadened their understandings of challenging situations and expanded the range of positive possibilities…. A practical testament to the significance of the questioning mind.”—KIRKUS REVIEWS(read full review)

“In this wise book, Warren Berger shows us how crucial it is to question every aspect of our lives, from business to school to our choice of toothpaste. My question: Why wouldn’t you read this book?”—A.J. JACOBS, New York Times bestselling author and Esquire columnist

“The genesis of many great startups is the simple question, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if…?’ Berger helps you understand the power of questions to change the world. Real men ask questions, they don’t spout out answers.”—GUY KAWASAKI, author of APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur, and former chief evangelist at Apple

“Mastering the art of asking questions is essential to creativity and innovation. A More Beautiful Question should be standard reading for all aspiring design thinkers as well an inspiration to those searching for a life of curiosity and meaning.”—TIM BROWN, Chief Executive, IDEO and author of Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations

“In an age of instant information, it’s easier than ever to find answers, but also easy to forget how important it is to ask the right kinds of questions. In this deeply thought-provoking book, Warren Berger shows how learning the art of good questioning—and resisting the urge to race too quickly toward conclusions—is the path to a far more fruitful and creative way of engaging with the world, at work and in life as a whole.”—OLIVER BURKEMAN, columnist at The Guardian and bestselling author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking

“Warren Berger’s book is a cure for a disease in large enterprises. A More Beautiful Question provides a framework to help leaders ask the most important questions—which is one of the most fundamental characteristics of a great leader—while sharing inspiring stories to show the incredible power of this concept.”—JIM STENGEL, former Global Marketing Officer at Procter & Gamble and author of Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World’s Greatest Companies

“A MoreBeautiful Question is a tour de force on how asking questions shapes the life and work of creative leaders. I founded The 4-24 Project because questions are the lifeblood of innovation, and thus, our future. Berger’s engaging collection of narratives will undoubtedly propel this question mission forward, inspiring readers from all walks of life to challenge the status quo by asking more of the world.”—HAL GREGERSEN, co-author, The Innovator’s DNA and founder of The 4-24 Project

“Why has a book like this never been written before? Here is a persuasive case for the simple and yet extraordinary power of a question. Fascinating, engaging stories give life to a strong argument about how much can be accomplished, in every domain of our lives, ‘just’ by asking questions. Innovators, entrepreneurs, citizens, parents, teachers, idealists and realists—all of us have much to gain by reading A More Beautiful Question.”—DAN ROTHSTEIN and LUZ SANTANA, co-directors, THE RIGHT QUESTION INSTITUTE; co-authors, Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions

“Questions have literally moved mountains, powered rockets, and instantly developed images. Berger focuses on what he calls ‘Beautiful Questions’… that can lead to game-changing answers and results. These are questions that, once raised, tend to get people thinking in a different way.”—THE ATLANTIC

“The desire to ask bigger and better questions is on the rise… Warren Berger has been tracking a movement toward questioning that is running very strong in Silicon Valley, but also seems to be spreading throughout the business, nonprofit and education sectors.”